Oh God, who unites the hearts of your faithful in one desire, inspire your people
people to love your decrees and to hope in your promises, so that in the midst
of many occupations of this world, our hearts may be firm in true joy.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
So here we are, we wake to the most beautiful Spanish sunrise to one side of Cuatro Vientos knowing we've made it through the night and shall forever be known as the Vigil Survivors of the Hexham and Newcastle diocese. In all honesty, we did feel that we had achieved something by staying at the airfield over night and it's fair to say that the ten of us would have felt we had missed out on something had we not had the experience of that night shared with the other 2 million pilgrims around us.
At times it really was like something from a Holywood movie, the way the wind began whipping up around us, how the lightening storm was seemingly right above us and even when some of our group left during the night there was something very bizarre about the way in which they walked away from our group into the storm, almost as if they were going ahead to forge the way for us to follow later!
We ended up spending a lot of our evening and early morning talking to a group of Canadian pilgrims who were also meant to be in our designated section of the airfield but found themselves squeezed out too. So often in our faith we can feel isolated and maybe it takes events like this to realise that there are young people all over the world thinking the same thoughts about their faith as we are here. There were so many similarities between both groups but it was also great to hear how certain things at different in each of our cultures when comparisons were made.
The celebration of mass with Pope Benedict this morning may have been the last of the big occasions for WYD in Madrid this year but the memories we carry home with us will be of a faith shared, cherished and strengthened for each one of us. Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith was the theme of this world youth day and we will leave Madrid with the hope and determination that we can carry out this message in our own ministry to all the other young people we encounter in our lives back in England. World Youth Day has been a truly incredible experience and we are blessed and truly thankful of the opportunities that have been given to us over the last 10 days.
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